The effects of symptom and test validity scale information on the use of response latencies for detecting malingerers on the Personality Assessment Inventory

Abstract

The present study explored the relationship between information, response latency, and malingering behavior by investigating the effects of symptom-related and validity-item-related (NIM) information on response latencies and the use of these response latencies to detect malingering on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAD. One hundred five undergraduate college students were randomly assigned to five groups: (1) controls; (2) uninformed malingerers; (3) NIM-informed malingerers; (4) schizophrenia-informed malingerers; and (5) NIM-and-schizophrenia-informed malingerers. Students were asked to complete a computerized version of the PAI.^ The response latencies to test items were compared. In general, the statistical analyses failed to support the hypotheses. On one of the PAI scales where the difference between groups was statistically significant, the data indicate that the control subjects, instead of the malingerers, had the longer response latencies. Furthermore, the response latencies for subjects informed about schizophrenia increased, rather than decreased as originally predicted. Validity scale information, on the other hand, did significantly affect the response latencies on the NIM and SCZ scales. Thus, the hypothesis that the response latencies of subjects informed about the NIM scale would be longer than those of the uninformed malingerers was only partially supported. No two-way interactions were noted. ^ An examination of the experimental design indicates that the response latency collection procedure may have allowed large variances in the data and caused the results to be not significant. Prior studies have used the same method for measuring response latencies and have found statistical effects. A review of these studies suggests that their results were statistically biased. It also suggests that the previous supposition regarding the utility of response latency data may not be correct. The present study is predicated on the theory that response latency data possess incremental value in detecting malingerers and attempted to extend the research by investigating the effects of information. Implications of these findings were discussed, and recommendations for future research were made. ^